Omni Barton Creek Resort: Crenshaw Cliffside

Crenshaw Cliffside, completed in 1991, was just the second course Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw completed and represents the last project they'd work on in relative obscurity: soon after they began piecing together Sand Hills, no. 8 on America's 100 Greatest Courses, creating a wave of minimalism and big natural courses that has yet to abate.

Though not on property particularly suited to good golf, Crenshaw Cliffside has all the hallmarks of what has made the architects' courses at once revolutionary and nuanced: large, heavily contoured greens that feel subtle; bunkers that have some of the most detailed edging in the game; a sense of elegance and restraint in the construction; and the discipline to take what the land gives, yeilding unconventional sequences like huge back-to-back par 5s along the edge of a river ravine followed by a pitch-shot par 3 into a shallow thumbnail green.

Golfers tend to think more highly of Omni Barton Creek's two Tom Fazio-designed courses, Fazio Canyons and Fazio Foothills, and gravitate toward the flash and aesthetics of those designs. Each are listed among the top 40 in Texas's Best in State ranking, while Crenshaw Cliffside is not. Those who enjoy the work of Coore and Crenshaw, on the other hand, appreciate that the architecture takes the opportunities that were presented and works with them, creating a tight, connected layout that's different than it's peers but rhythmic and riveting in its own way.